Continually increasing numbers of individuals are utilizing wireless communication devices to conduct mobile communications. In response to the prominence of modern wireless communication networks and the Warning, Alert, and Response Network (WARN) Act passed by Congress in 2006, the Federal Communications Commission has adopted a network structure, operational procedures, and technical requirements for the Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS). CMAS is an alerting network designed to aggregate emergency notifications from federal agencies and distribute these notification messages to participating wireless communication service providers. The wireless communication service providers may then broadcast these emergency notifications to wireless communication devices that are affected by the emergency.
To support CMAS, participating wireless communication service providers typically reserve a dedicated communication channel in each sector of a wireless access network for broadcasting emergency notifications to users located in each of the sectors. These reserved emergency broadcast channels are separate from the other communication channels and resources utilized to exchange typical user communications with wireless devices over the network, such as Internet access and voice communications. Reserving a dedicated emergency broadcast channel is necessary because user communications often increase during an emergency, which could prevent or delay the transmission of CMAS emergency notifications if the user communication channels were shared for such emergency broadcasts.